As if making minimum wage wasn't bad enough, retail workers also have to deal with jerk customers who think the whole world revolves around them. Don't believe me? The folks below will be happy to share their most infuriating customer stories. In fact, that's exactly what they've done.
28. Six! Six! Six!
27. How did you keep your cool? I would have gone to jail
26. Pretty (rude) in pink
I used to work in clothing retail at a store that specialized in high quality basics in several different colors. We were approaching the holidays so the store released cashmere sweaters in pastels like blue, purple, and green. Punched into work, walked onto the busy sales floor, and was immediately approached by an older woman (OW) and her teenage daughter (TD).
25. I'm gonna beat you for helping me
24. The ice cream of the crop
23. You get the eye contact free of charge
22. The manager should have told this woman where to go
21. I'm a customer so you have to be my friend!
20. As American as frozen pie
19. Literally crying over spilled milk
18. You're my servant!
This happened back in the late 90s when I was a teen working my first retail job at a popular department store.
The store closes at 9pm, there a numerous signs and announcements are made.
At 9pm, I vacuum my area and tidy up, then do a final walkthrough to make sure no customers are still in my area of the store. Seeing no one at 9:15 PM, I close my register and hand the money into the office. I notice I forgot my keys, so still clocked in I return to my register to get them. Of course there is a customer waiting at the register.
The customer wanted to see a pair of shoes. I told her the store was closed and the register was shut down, but I would be happy to get the shoes for her and if she liked them I would hold them for her until the next day.
"No, you are here to serve me."
I was caught off guard by this statement, but quickly responded with, "Only until 9pm. Since it is after that time, I am leaving."
I left the sales floor, told the manager, clocked out, and left.
17. Doing her business while you're doing your business
16. This isn't a return; you're trying to sell stuff to me
15. Call the steward, I guess
14. 44>46?
13. Magic and unicorn farts
I just got to top off my Monday by arguing with an irate customer. Fun. My store installs television service. Most of our products are wired, but we have one product that is wireless. The wireless aspect is that it doesn't connect to a coaxial cable in the wall, the signal to the unit is sent wirelessly, and you are free to move the TV and unit anywhere within the home.
Enter customer who was up in arms because he was promised wireless and his box has wires. I checked his account and confirmed he had a wireless unit. He started yelling and telling me I am wrong. I showed him the unit on the sales floor when I get hit with a gem.
Irate customer points at the unit in triumph "SEE??!? THIS so called wireless box has wires!!!!" Yup. It has a power cord and an HDMI cord to connect to the television.
I explained to him what wireless meant in this case and the unit he had was indeed wireless. He demanded that we put in a truly wireless unit. I literally told him that the unit doesn't work off of magic and unicorn farts.
12. That's sad, but what about my potatoes?
I work at a grocery store. Today, an employee in the meat department collapsed at 7am, right after the store opened. Someone working next to him flipped him over onto his back and started yelling his name and for help. He was unconscious, not breathing, and turning purple.
Someone from my team saw and immediately called 911 while he ran over to our coworker on the floor. He began doing CPR on him and didn’t stop until the EMTs arrived (4 minutes). The manager on duty ran over with the defibrillator right as the paramedics got there. They cut his shirt open and I saw him laying there, not breathing or moving, as they shoved tubes down his throat and began to push air into his lungs.
Meanwhile, a customer was impatiently demanding I get her a bunch sweet potatoes, completely oblivious to the man basically dead on the floor ten feet away from her.
11. Getting into a bit of a pickle
When I worked at a grocery store, I was the one that would work the register later in the evening. Being that it wasn't a large chain store there was only three people in at the time.
Well, one night I was at the register and only one customer in the store. They didn't like the selection of some random food, I think it was rice. They were getting really mad at me because I was the one there in front of them. It comes to the point where they threw pickles at me and hit me in the face.
I was so angry but my manager saw it and came out to help. My manager was actually backing me up for once and is very upset with the customer. Manager asks me to go call the police since we have them on camera doing it. But before I step out to call, an off duty cop comes in and sees the customer with my manager. The off duty officer asks me if everything is okay I told her no the customer had assaulted me and we had it on camera.
She told me not to worry and she called one of her co-workers and he was there lickity split. They asked if I wanted to press charges, told him I do. Actually ended up going to court for it too (the case didn't go too far because it was cut and dry that they did it).
Yes, this customer went to jail over a pickle.
10. What do you mean it's not free?
So, I work in a charity shop (thrift shop, essentially, but the money raised goes to a charity), and I'd say at least three times a day people try to negotiate on the price of items or rip the tags off.
Anyway, we got a donation of some really cool art prints, about 30 in total, and I decided to put them out for $1 each (very reasonable, for what they are). That afternoon, a customer comes up to me holding the box, telling me he wants to take all of them. That's 29 prints at this point. So I tell him the price is $29. He then says, "I'll give you $10."
Although I get some pretty terrible offers for things this might be the worst. I say to him, "You want me to give you 19 items for free?"
"My friend is an artist, he can use these." I don't care if you use these to frame or as toilet paper sir, I'm not giving you a discount when the money goes to CHARITY.
I then said I couldn't do that and after a lot of back and forth where I just repeatedly said "no", he decided to swear at me and storm out.
9. You gotta love when another customer steps in
So this happened yesterday right before closing time. I work at a hardware store, and had just came in from my lunch. I walked over towards the paint area and hear this lady screaming like someone was dying.
C: EXCUSE ME DOES ANYONE WORK IN THE PAINT AREA?!
She’s just screaming that to no one, just standing in the middle of the store. So I walk up and help her.
Me: Excuse ma’am do you need help?
C: Of course I do! I need x amount of paint.
Me: Alright, give me about ten minutes for all this.
She orders quite a bit of paint. Somewhere in the mix I messed up and gave her more than she asked for. My boss tells me to just discount it and let her take the whole thing. That’s fine with me; she gets out of here quicker and I don’t have to be yelled at.
While I’m standing there waiting for her to finish checking out, another gentleman comes up to me.
OG: Excuse me, sir. I have a question to ask you. I thought about just screaming 'help!' in the middle of the store but I’m not an idiot.
Then he just death stares at the First Lady. It took all I had to not bust out laughing. I answered his question and the First Lady tucked tail and scurried out without saying anything else.
Photo by Bente Whyatt on Unsplash
8. Turning water into paint
I work at a large orange colored hardware store chain. I get a lot of crazy returns like: bricks in drill boxes, rocks in lawnmower boxes, opened and used product, and some things that are just plain ridiculous.
Just to explain:
MOD = The manager on duty
Tint = the stuff you put in paint to give it color
One day I got a return that was a 5 gallon bucket of paint. I go to open the bucket and it’s water. They guy returning it insisted that it was paint and that it was “defective.”
So I called the MOD and he came over and was like, “what’s the problem?” I explained “this guy is trying to return a bucket of paint and it’s water.” He then opens the bucket, conforms it’s water, and says to the customer ,“Well there’s the problem, you just haven’t mixed it. If you want we can take you over to the paint desk and have it mixed.”
To which the guy (not wanting to admit he’s wrong) hesitantly says “sure let’s do that.” So I watch as the MOD has the paint desk put tint in a bucket of water and mix it, all the while the customer is standing there with look of defeat. The customer eventually left with his bucket of colored water and was “satisfied.”
7. My ID is pink
At work, I keep bright pink sticky notes with me. I doodle, keep notes, and honestly just fiddle with them to keep calm during our favorite problem-customers-meltdowns.
Today, I was helping a gentleman with a purchase that required showing his ID. I had already set the ID back down in front of him on the counter. The purchase was made, yet he kept staring down at me.
"I need my ID." he says, staring at my hands. In my hands were my clearly bright -pink- sticky notes. At first I was very confused and said,
"Yes sir, its right there," and nodded down at his ID. He didn't look down. His eyes clearly darted from my notes to my eyes.
"I see you holding it," he says.
Now, this customer had already been rude earlier. I was already at the level of "done with you". I looked from my brightly covered paper in my hands, up at him, back to my paper, back to him.
"Sir. Your ID is right down there if you look-"
"I -SEEEEEEE- it in your hands" he spits, putting emphasis on the word see. He was trying to mock me. But how do you feel mocked when you know they're 100% wrong?
I finally point as well, right at his ID . The one right in front of him. The one NOT in my hand. The one that is clearly not bright pink.
"Oh. there it is." He just grabs it and leaves. No 'I'm sorry', no 'oh I was confused', nothing.
6. Why can't the dentist fix my car?
This just happened to me and my mind is blown by the stupidity of some people. See, I work as a pharmacy tech and this lady comes up to the register. I come up to her and ask if she was picking up a medication or dropping off a prescription. Here’s basically how it went down:
Lady: I need you to fix this for me. plops down a broken jewelled bracelet
Me: Ma’am, I don’t know how to fix broken jewelry, and we don’t fix jewelry here.
L: You guys used to do it though.
M: I’ve been here for a year and we’ve never had services like that. If we had one, you might want to ask someone in the front store for information.
L: Why can’t you help me?
M: I don’t know how to help you. I’m a pharmacy tech. I deal with medications not jewelry.
L: So you can’t fix it?
M: No, ma’am. I’m sorry, you’re at a pharmacy, not a jewelry store.
L: Well. That's not very good service. walks away
I stood there, baffled. I couldn’t quite believe what just went down. I don’t know. I just had to share this. I don’t know...
5. A biting rebuke
4. How cheap can you possibly be?!
I work at a very small, busy store. We sell bags for 10¢, and have boxes if you forget to bring reusable bags. Some people bring in extra plastic bags they've stashed at home, and give them to us to disperse. Everything here is insanely cheap. Full cart of groceries for $30, cheap.
We got absolutely slammed after the holiday weekend, as we expected. It got so busy that we ran out of extra bags AND boxes, which usually doesn't happen.
One night I served an entire family of incredible mean jerks.
It came time to pay and pack their items. When I mentioned that we ran out of free bags and boxes, but have 10¢ bags available, the lady who did all the talking got furious. "I'll see about that!" as she stormed off to ask stockers.
In the meantime, one of the guys with her just asked for a few of the 10¢ bags and we packed up. She came back, rammed into a regular customer, and started barking at the guy who got the bags.
My regular went "those people are rude" as I rang her up. I smiled real wide said "have a nice day!" She knew they ticked me off, too, and said "good luck!"
Then they called her a [bleep]. Stay classy.
I turned back around to see all a bunch of dog food in their cart. "Hey you didn't pay for that," I said. "Oh. Thought we did."
I'll give them the benefit of the doubt here, but they didn't even stop by the pet section. No way they thought they had paid for it.
Mean and thieving. Real charmers.
Photo by rawpixel.com from Pexels
3. Your prices literally make me sick
So I worked at a certain phone company as a “wireless consultant” which is basically just a cashier that can change your phone plan and take your money for accessories and what not. We had a strict policy where if you buy a phone case or something of the sort and want to return it, you have to pay a 25% restocking fee. People often got annoyed at this so we would have them sign a waiver on the receipt that says they understand this is a rule.
So this elderly woman comes in to return an item (don’t remember what exactly). I ring up her return and give her 75% of the price back to her.
Cue mental breakdown. She says “I never knew about that policy, that is stupid. I have been with this company for years and you should respect me.” I tell her to give me the receipt so I can look at it. On the back of the receipt it very plainly says in big words “there is a 25% restocking fee on all returned accessories.” Directly under that was her signature.
This escalated even worse and she began yelling and cussing and finally she looked me dead in the eyes and said “if you don’t give me all of my money back I’m going to throw up all over.” I tried to hold back my laughter but I couldn’t help but let the smallest smirk cross my face because of how ridiculous this situation was.
For context this item was maybe $35 new so we are talking like $8 here.
She storms off and walks out the door. Not even 2 minutes later she comes steaming back in, slams her finger down her throat, and vomited all over the phone cases on the wall.
At this point I was stunned.
Me: Ma’am, please don’t throw up on the merchandise. I am going to call the police.
In response, she barfed some more.
Cops come, they honestly had a hard time believing what I said. They told me there wasn’t a whole lot they could do. Manager comes in from her off day and tells me to clean it up. I quit on the spot.
2. Go ahead: say something about millennials, I dare you
I work in the electronics section of a popular department store. The town is largely populated by old/retired people, so I'm used to explaining technology in a simple-to-understand way.
I'm stocking shelves when I see an older man staring at cables and muttering to himself. I put on a smile, walk over, and do my whole “hello, how may I help you" thing.
Man: "I'm so sick and tired of needing so many cables to connect my technology. I have an iPad, a phone, and a computer and it's a pain to connect it all."
Me: "I completely understand sir, what kind of cabl-"
Him: "I have a [camera] and I want to connect it with my computer."
Me: "Oh, okay! No problem, sir, those kinds of cables are right over here."
Now, we have the USB-C and Micro-USB cables mixed in with each other, so I figure I should let him know which is which. I've done the same thing with plenty of other people and they were more than capable of figuring it out.
Me: "So, make sure when you're selecting your cable, it ha-"
Him: "These are too expensive."
Me: "Well, sir, this is the cheapest that these cables usually go for. Now, when you're selecting a cable, make sure it says 'micro-USB' on the box, like thi-"
Him: "I don't understand."
Me: "Well, sir, some of these are what are known as Micro-USB, which is what fits your camera. Some of these are USB-C, whi-"
Him: "What are you saying?!"
Me: "I understand the confusion, sir, the names are simila-"
Him: "No, I don't understand your terminology!"
Me: "Sir, I understand, but that's what I'm trying to expla-"
Him: "Clearly you don't understand people.” I'm a terrible worker, I'm out of touch, etc.
At this point, I realize he's going to refuse any kind of help, so I decide to take our cheapest cable, peel off the tape keeping it shut, and show him the end. He yanks the cable out of my hand as I'm in the middle of saying "Is this what you're looking for?” and starts walking towards the exit.
I chase after him, explaining that he needs the box in order to check out. He barks that he doesn't need it, finally grabbing it out of my hand when I restate that he needs a barcode if he intends to pay for it. He barks something about "teaching me how to work" as I sigh and go back to stocking boxes.
1. Obit-u-ary: find out what it means to me
A lady walks in to my convenience store and walks directly over to the greeting cards. After about five minutes, she comes over and impatiently taps her foot behind the line up of people checking their lotto tickets. I finally get to her.
Her: Do you not sell obituaries here?
Me: Pardon?
Her: O-BIT-U-AR-IES. Do you not sell them here?
Me: Obituaries?
Her: rolling her eyes now Yes... obituaries..
Me: Ummm they’re printed in the newspaper. We sell the newspapers here.
Her: No. OBITUARIES. I’m looking for obituaries.
Me: Yes, to my knowledge those are printed in the paper, online, or available at the funeral home/funeral. No one sells obituaries. You were looking at cards. Did you mean sympathy cards?
Her: No, I mean obituaries. What kind of place is this? It’s not that hard to understand. I’m looking for obituaries.
Me: Well, I have no idea how to help you there..
Her: Alright. I am going to a funeral. I want to bring the family an obituary.
Me: I think you’re looking for a sympathy card.
Her: This is ridiculous. You’re being stupid. This is stupid. I’ll just go elsewhere.
And with that, she stormed out.
